


Eudaimonia

by Sineala



Category: The Eagle | Eagle of the Ninth (2011)
Genre: Angst, Community: fandom_stocking, M/M, Philosophy, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-04
Updated: 2013-01-04
Packaged: 2017-11-23 14:34:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/623239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sineala/pseuds/Sineala
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marcus has never been a good Stoic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eudaimonia

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Piscaria](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Piscaria/gifts).



> Almost everything I know about Stoicism I learned from Wikipedia and [Stoicism and its Modern Uses](http://anonym.to/?http://blogs.exeter.ac.uk/stoicismtoday/)' helpful PDF booklet on how to be a Stoic for a week. Thanks to Carmarthen and osprey_archer for beta and to Lysimache for letting me bug her about the Stoics. All remaining mistakes are mine. 
> 
> Also, Marcus has some ablist attitudes.

Marcus spits out the mouthful of cool water, watching it soak into the bone-dry earth before him. He sits back and wipes off his mouth, breathing evenly, calmly. He does not desire the water. He is content with what he has. There is no longing in him for these things he cannot have. His will is in accord with nature.

It is a hot summer day, the water-cup is now empty, and he thirsts terribly.

Marcus has never been a good Stoic.

He has tried, oh, he has tried. 

He has always thought of the philosophy as a comfort, even in its harshness, for in a way it is softer than life would have been without it. Be content, the Stoics say. Be content. His father, lost in the north. Well, and so? It has happened. There is no use wishing for it to be otherwise, no use in letting it upset him. His family's honor, stained. That too has happened. 

A true Stoic would not have yearned to soldier for Rome. Oh, certainly, that yearning could be a noble one, to desire to do good and serve the state, but not as Marcus felt it. The awful, selfish passion within him burned then, and it burns still. He wanted -- he wants -- to soldier, that he might redeem his family's name. He wants everything to be taken back, erased, cleansed.

It cannot be. But he will never stop wanting it. And the first day he could walk again he dragged himself across the house to the lararium, and he prayed anyway. _Do ut des_ , the formula goes, and he should not want them to give him anything.

He is not a good Stoic, and dwelling on how he is a bad Stoic is, he is certain, makes him an even worse Stoic, for a good Stoic would simply accept--

\--how he is ruined now, scarred, broken, how he will limp forever, how he can never, never soldier again, just as Lutorius told him when he brought him the armilla. How he and his kin will be in disgrace as long as Rome lives.

Marcus chokes, a little; the noise that comes out of him is but the smallest gasp, but he has given into it now.

" _Domine_ ," Esca's voice calls, curiously; from his vantage point here under the tree he can just barely see Esca at the edge of his uncle's lake. "Are you well?"

"Perfectly fine," Marcus yells back, gritting his teeth.

And then there is Esca. Esca had already thought the business with the water was strange enough, Marcus could tell, but at least he has refrained from saying anything. But that is not what troubles Marcus about Esca.

It is bad enough that Esca is a slave, he supposes. He knows what the philosophy says about slaves -- at least, as some philosophers would have it. All men are equals. And yet, he owns Esca. But if he freed Esca, Esca would run, as sure as anything, and he would be alone. He wants Esca to stay. He wants Esca to desire to stay. He cannot have that, either.

The worst thing, though, is what else he desires of Esca -- for there are things he burns for, awful impure things, that he can only think about in the most furtive of thoughts. Every night he thinks of Esca coming to him freely, as a free man, never his slave, laughing, smiling, touching him, _wanting_ him in return. It is not enough to be content that Esca would never care for him; he should never entertain the idea at all.

And yet, he cannot stop. He is in misery in so many ways, and nothing about it contents him.

If Zeno were alive, Marcus is sure the man would curse his name.

A hand touches his shoulder, and Marcus looks up.

Esca is smiling at him, ever so faintly. "I do not pretend to understand your strange Roman ways," he says, his tone a strange mix of reluctance and something that might be fondness, "but I have brought you more water." He holds forth another cup, this one full.

Marcus waves him off. "It is-- I do not need water."

Esca lifts an eyebrow, skeptical. "It is hot; surely you are thirsty."

"I am happy," Marcus lies.

"You are _not_ ," says Esca. "You're unhappy and you are thirsty."

"I am thirsty and happy?" he tries.

Esca laughs, and for one glorious moment Marcus lets himself believe the man is his friend. "Marcus," says Esca, as a friend might. "Drink the water. It is well, to have what you want. Your gods will forgive you."

It is not worth explaining the difference between gods and philosophers.

Their hands meet over the cup, Esca's fingers trapped under Marcus' for an instant, and Marcus shivers at the touch.

"I cannot have what I want," he says, the words raw and bitter. He wants so much. He wants everything too much, with too much passion.

Esca smiles again, and his hand slides up Marcus' arm to squeeze his shoulder. "Drink. You can have water. As for anything else, well, who is to say you cannot have that too? Perhaps you should ask."

His smile is wider now, and Marcus has the strangest feeling that he could ask. That Esca knows some of what is in his heart. That if Esca were not his slave, he might even say yes.

Marcus will not ask, of course, but it warms him to know that he could. After all, he remembers, Zeno himself wrote that love was a virtuous passion.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, apparently Epictetus wrote about the spitting-water exercise. I figured it had to go in the story.


End file.
